Star Metro - Hamas delegation due in Egypt for Gaza truce talks

Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate an agreement between Israel and Hamas for months, but a flurry of diplomacy in recent days appeared to suggest a new push towards halting the fighting.

Talks "are taking place in Cairo today", said Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence services, though it was not immediately clear whether the Hamas delegation had already arrived.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his seventh visit to the region since the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, arrived Monday in Saudi Arabia and will also travel to Israel later this week, a State Department official said.

A senior Hamas official said Sunday that the Palestinian group had no "major issues" with the most recent truce plan.

"The atmosphere is positive unless there are new Israeli obstacles," the official told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss the negotiations.

A source with knowledge of the talks told AFP that Qatari mediators were also taking part in the negotiations in Cairo.

While Israel has pledged to pursue Hamas battalions in Rafah despite mounting global concern for Palestinian civilians sheltering in the southern Gaza Strip city, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the government may "suspend" the invasion if an agreement is reached.

The war has brought besieged Gaza to the brink of famine, UN and humanitarian officials say, reduced much of the territory to rubble and raised fears of broader conflict.

An AFP correspondent, witnesses and rescuers reported air strikes overnight on Rafah, where the majority of Gaza's 2.4 million people have sought refuge near the border with Egypt.

At least 22 people were killed in Rafah, medics and the Civil Defence agency said, with witnesses telling AFP at least three houses had been hit.

More strikes were reported in central Gaza.

A Hamas source close to the negotiations had told AFP the group is keen for an agreement that "guarantees a permanent ceasefire, the free return of displaced people, an acceptable deal for (prisoner-hostage) exchange and an end to the siege" in Gaza.

In Israel, protesters have demanded that the government secure the freedom of the 129 hostages estimated to remain in Gaza since being seized by militants on October 7, including 34 the military says are dead.

- 'Permanent ceasefire' -

Hamas's October attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,454 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

A one-week halt to the fighting in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Hamas has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire -- a condition Israel has rejected.

However, the Axios news website, citing Israeli officials, reported that Israel's latest proposal includes a willingness to discuss the "restoration of sustainable calm" after hostages are released.

According to the Hamas source, the latest plan proposes Israeli withdrawal from two main roads through the coastal territory to allow Gazans to return to the heavily impacted north.

Hamas negotiator Zaher Jabareen told AFP that "success or failure" will be determined by "the ability to reach a permanent ceasefire decision" and agree "clear" plans for reconstruction of the war-battered territory and the return of Gazans displaced by the war.

His Saudi counterpart, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said Sunday the international "political system" had failed in its response to the "catastrophe" in Gaza.

Prince Faisal told a World Economic Forum (WEF) summit that only "a credible, irreversible path to a Palestinian state" will prevent the world from confronting "this same situation" again in the future.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government has rejected calls for Palestinian statehood.

- Hostage release -

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, appealed at the WEF meeting for the United States to stop Israel from invading Rafah, which he said would be "the biggest disaster in the history of the Palestinian people".

Israel's foreign minister signalled on Saturday that Israel may be willing to call off the invasion.

"If there is a deal, we will suspend the operation," Katz told Israel's Channel 12.

In February, Netanyahu said any truce deal would only delay -- not prevent -- a Rafah operation.

War cabinet member Benny Gantz said that "Rafah is important in the long struggle against Hamas" but that "the government will not have the right... to exist" if it blocks freeing captives.

Media reports said the Israeli government had authorised its negotiators to discuss the initial release of fewer than the 40 hostages it had previously demanded during the first phase of the truce.

UN humanitarian agency OCHA has warned that "famine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within the next six weeks" without massive food aid.

US President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone Sunday and "reviewed ongoing talks to secure the release of hostages together with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza", a White House statement said.

They "also discussed increases in the delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza", including "preparations" to open new crossings to northern Gaza, where conditions have been particularly dire.

Elsewhere, Lebanon-based fighters from Hamas's armed wing said in a statement on Telegram they fired rockets at a military position in northern Israel Monday in retaliation for Israeli attacks in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

burs-ami/srm

D.Ch. Nadeau--SMC